Our
Response to the “Working Group” Initiative

Feb. 24, 2006

We
are heartened by President Shalala’s decision to establish a
working group to study the compensation and benefits issues facing
the many contract employees who work on UM’s campuses. If
this
initiative indeed signals a genuine willingness on the
Administration’s part to rethink longstanding policies that
encourage outside firms to compete for UM’s contracts by
paying
poverty-level wages, then we applaud the change of heart and thank
the President for responding in such a constructive manner to the
many UM constituencies that have spoken up for the workers who make
life and learning on this campus possible.

But
we would have to ignore a lot of history – some of it
ancient, some
of it quite recent – not to sound a note of caution to those
who
think the UNICCO workers’ struggle for workplace justice is
over. For one thing, the target of the strike vote scheduled for this
weekend is the unfair labor practices alleged against UNICCO by the
National Labor Relations Board, which has charged the firm with
unlawfully interrogating workers about their union support;
prohibiting them from talking about the union at work; forcing them
to sign a statement disavowing the union; accusing them of
“disloyalty” for participating in off-hours union
functions;
threatening reprisals against union supporters; and conducting
unlawful surveillance of a union meeting. Moreover, as recently as
this week, UNICCO fired one of the leading union supporters after she
spoke about the union campaign to a reporter from the Orlando
Sentinel, so there is reason to believe that the antiunion campaign
has escalated rather than abated.

The
President’s statement offered no mention of either the
NLRB’s
proceedings against UN ICCO or the substance of any of these
allegations, let alone any suggestion that the University expects
better from its campus contractors. But if the charges against
UNICCO are true – and the agency of the federal government
that is
charged with protecting the organizing rights of American workers has
found reasonable cause to believe that they are – the firm
has
engaged in a disgraceful campaign to thwart its workers’
organizing
efforts. Should the employees vote to strike to protest this
conduct, we will support their effort in every way we can that is
consistent with our professional responsibilities to our students and
to the University, and we urge other members of the UM community
–
faculty, students, administrators, and support staff – to do
so as
well.

The
University’s own record on the issue of justice for campus
contract
workers is equally troubling. The UM Administration has, after all,
been aware of the effects of its contracting policies at least since
August 2001, when the Chronicle of Higher Education reported
– to
the mortification of virtually everyone in the UM community –
that
UM was the second lowest in janitorial pay among 195 institutions of
higher learning and that we were one of only a dozen institutions
that paid their custodial workers below the official Federal Poverty
Wage.

For
those of us who participated in the ensuing effort to persuade the
University Administration to adopt a living wage policy, there is a
disturbing sense of déjà vu here. Responding to
criticisms from faculty, students, and other members of the
University community, and to a spate of unwelcome publicity, the
President at that time undertook a six-month study of compensation
and benefits policies for contract workers. At the end of that
process, she announced the health awareness and education initiatives
outlined in yesterday's statement. That was obviously a step
in
the right direction, though the SEIU reports that many workers view
those initiatives mostly as an opportunity to learn about treatments
they can't afford and in any event as no substitute for a wage and
benefit package that provides them with health care rather than
merely health fairs. (We suspect that the larger South
Florida
community – whose taxes and charitable contributions are
currently
covering the lion's share of the health care costs of such low-wage
workers – would readily agree.) In any event, the President
also
announced that the University would continue to adhere to its
“market-based” approach to pay for contract
workers, meaning that
outside firms could continue to compete for UM contracts by paying
poverty-level wages, as indeed they have. Nothing was done about
those embarrassing pay levels in 2001; in 2002; in 2003; in 2004; in
2005; or indeed in 2006, until three days before the scheduled strike
vote.

The
timing of the working group initiative thus speaks, loudly, for
itself. In the eloquent words of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall
Harlan, “[t]he beneficence of an employer is likely to be
ephemeral
if prompted by a threat of unionization which is subsequently
removed.” The same is surely true of beneficence that is also
prompted by a community outcry in support of its workers’
protests,
and so we urge all members of that community to continue the outcry
until the Administration commits itself to a living wage policy for
all workers – UM as well as contract employees –
who serve this
University.

We
would have more confidence in the likely results of this second round
of study and consultation if the working group the President
established had broader representation from the University community
and in particular from student and faculty groups that have been
critical of the contracting policies that the President is now
willing to reconsider. And we would have more confidence
still
if those most directly affected had a voice in the decisionmaking
process. Indeed, a voice in the process is exactly what the UNICCO
workers are seeking through their unionization effort, and
it’s
exactly what UNICCO has evidently attempted to thwart through a
continuing campaign of unfair labor practices. We stand with those
workers in support of their efforts to secure “a place at the
table” when decisions are made about their working lives, and
we
urge other members of the University community to stand with them as
well.